LABOUR CONFERENCE 2013
Speech by Deputy Leader and Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton T.D. proposing Motion 49 on behalf of the Central Council
TOWARDS A LIVING WAGE
Saturday, 30th November 2013
Fellow delegates,
It is just 1,000 days since Labour Party members endorsed our participation in government with Fine Gael.
We did so in order that the Labour Party would be central to the recovery of our economy.
We did so to transform our public services.
We did so to ensure our country could never again be so badly misgoverned that its very existence as an independent nation was in grave doubt.
Today, I can tell you that the Labour Party has played that central role with determination, resolve and without deserting the political values that bind us:
- We have focused relentlessly on tacking unemployment which has borne fruit, with 58,000 more people at work now than this time last year.
- We have radically reformed the public employment service to assist people back to work, training or education.
- And despite the Troika’s requirement for reductions in spending, we have preserved the core payments that make up the social welfare safety net and guarantee a threshold of decency.
As the era of the bailout ends and recovery beckons, we face a new chapter.
There is one thing we have to recognise honestly.
Workers and their families face unprecedented threats to their living standards and we as social democrats have yet to offer them a reliable remedy.
For decades, the proceeds of growth were shared between workers and employers.
That was the bargain that we social democrats made with the market.
But long before the financial crisis, that bargain had started to break down.
Wages have stagnated while profits have skyrocketed.
As a recent Financial Times article stated: “There has been a battle between capital and labour and basically capital has won.”
But that victory will be hollow, because workers with insufficient wages to make ends meet are certainly not going to have the spending power that will enable economies to grow.
The conservative consensus is that low labour costs are the key to growth and job creation.
I reject this.
Wages are not just costs.
They are also the main source of demand.
So as the economy begins to recover, we need to safeguard wages from stagnation.
A recovery that didn’t improve the living standards of ordinary families would be no recovery at all.
That is why I have argued strongly for a Living Wage and for legislation to guarantee collective bargaining.
We can now glimpse what recovery will look like.
But that recovery must come from the middle out, not the top down.
It is the earnings of the middle and working classes that have always fuelled economic expansion here – and growth in their wages will be central to real and lasting recovery.
In my view, negotiated wage-led growth is the most viable and effective strategy for economic recovery.
It is a strategy that the Labour Party and our colleagues in the trade union movement should put centre stage in the weeks and months ahead.
Thank you very much.